Chapter 8
The court did not make it easy.
Emily was not related to Lucy.
She was a traumatized mother in the middle of a criminal case.
Her lawyers warned her it was complicated.
Emily did not care.
“She walked barefoot through trash carrying my baby,” she said. “Complicated can wait.”
Sarah was asked for consent.
She cried for twenty minutes before answering.
“I love Lucy,” she said. “But love didn’t keep her fed.”
No one spoke.
Sarah signed temporary placement support with shaking hands.
“I need to get better before I ask her to come home.”
Lucy did not understand at first.
She thought Sarah was giving her away.
I sat with her in the family-services room while she kicked the leg of a chair.
“Mommy doesn’t want me.”
“That’s not true.”
“She signed.”
“She signed so you can be safe while she gets healthy.”
Lucy glared at me.
“You promise?”
I wanted to say yes.
But adults had promised this child too many things.
So I said, “I promise I will tell you the truth.”
She cried then.
Hard.
Angry.
Real.
Emily’s house in Houston was nothing like the duplex.
Wide windows.
Soft rugs.
A nursery that smelled like clean blankets.
Lucy stood in the entryway holding the stuffed lion.
“Do I have to be quiet?”
Emily knelt.
“No.”
“Can I eat?”
“Whenever you’re hungry.”
Lucy frowned.
“What if it’s not dinner?”
Emily’s face crumpled.
“Then we make a snack.”
Leo was in his playpen.
When he saw Lucy, he squealed.
Lucy dropped her bag and ran to him.
“Leo!”
He reached both arms up.
She hugged him too tightly.
Emily gently said, “Soft arms.”
Lucy loosened her hold.
“Sorry.”
“No sorry needed. Just learning.”
I watched from the doorway and felt something inside me ache.
Captain Morris had approved my temporary liaison role because the federal case crossed jurisdictions.
That was the official reason I kept visiting.
The unofficial reason was Lucy asked if I would.
Weeks passed.
Sarah stayed in treatment.
Madison testified.
Charles’s network collapsed.
His mother was charged with witness intimidation.
His lawyer lost his license.
The psychiatrist confessed.
But Lucy still woke screaming.
One night, Emily called me at 2:13 a.m.
“She’s under the kitchen table and won’t come out.”
I drove over.
Lucy was curled under the table with a cereal box clutched to her chest.
I got down on the floor.
“Hey, Lucy.”
She whispered, “I heard Brent.”
I listened.
Only the hum of the refrigerator.
“No Brent here.”
“He said he’d come back.”
“He can’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s locked up.”
She stared at me.
“Locks open.”
I swallowed.
“You’re right. So we have people too.”
Emily sat on the floor beside us.
Leo babbled from her lap.
Lucy looked at all of us.
Then she crawled out.
Not fixed.
May you like
Not healed.
But moving.
